


The One-Star Review

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Chef!Phil, Food Critic!Dan, Getting Together, M/M, Prompt Fic, Secret Identity, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-24 19:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17106539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Phil's just been promoted to Head Chef of The Golden Saucer. Which sounds like good news, but the restaurant is struggling, he's forced to cook a menu he hates, and on top of that they just got a one-star review from a renowned yet faceless food critic of a national newspaper.Thankfully, things are about to change for the better.





	The One-Star Review

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ColorMeHazelnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorMeHazelnut/gifts).



> Written for the Phandomficfests Exchange Fest
> 
> Prompts were:  
> \- blade  
> \- An AU where Dan and Phil are simply opposites.  
> \- Start your fic with: “Get out. Now. Don't make me tell you twice.”
> 
> So I decided to try and smush them all together and do one fic that was an interpretation of all three. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks to my beta, I couldn't have done this without you.

"Get out. Now. Don't make me tell you twice."

Phil is paused, the knife in his hand elevated above a small mound of diced onions. 

"Oh dear," says Kayleigh from across the prep station, "I guess she finally snapped." 

Phil looks over his shoulder to the source of the noise. 

"Don't look," Kayleigh urges, reaching out to wave a hand in front of his face in warning.

"What's happening?" Phil says, under his breath. 

Kayleigh looks up and over at the commotion on the other side of the kitchen. Phil hears their head chef Richard say something in return and he waits for Kayleigh to give him an update. 

"Bev is really pissed off," she says. "I think she's actually just fired him." 

"Think it'll stick this time?"

"Looks like it," Kayleigh says. "He's getting his coat. Oh- shit. Head down." 

Phil looks back down at his cutting board and gets on with chopping the onions. He hears the click of Beverley's heels on the kitchen tiles behind him and then a pointed clearing of her throat. 

"Could I have your attention for a moment?" 

Phil puts the knife down and turns around. The porter stops with a heavy box of something in his hands, and the waitresses, Dodie and Ellie, who have been so far just giggling in a corner, waiting for the rush to start, promptly look up.

Beverley has her ginger hair pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head and big gold hoop earrings in that go against every food hygiene guideline there is, but The Golden Saucer is her restaurant. Phil figures she can do whatever she wants. 

"As you no doubt just heard, Richard has been asked to leave the business without notice. I'll let you know about his replacement in due course, but for the time being..." 

Phil braces himself for what's coming. What always comes, anytime Richard calls in sick, or simply doesn't turn up. 

"Phil, you'll supervise the kitchen for the dinner shift tonight." 

Phil manages to pull a smile together and nods at her. 

"Okay," Beverley says, "you can all go back to work. Thank you for your time."

She gives him one final nod, which is all the encouragement he's going to get, and then she's leaving, her heels clacking on the tiles once again. 

"You know she's going to ask you," Kayleigh says. 

"For what?" Phil says, turning back around to his onion. It could have been an easy shift too, chop the onions, prepare the mise. Plate up, call the orders. Stuff he can do without thinking. Now he has to run the damn shift, which is a whole lot more complicated than prep and plate. He looks at the knife longingly and almost picks it back up. 

"Richard's job," Kayleigh says. She reaches over and picks up his chopping board, onion included. 

"She won't."

"When will you have a little faith in yourself?" Kayleigh says. "You're a good chef, Phil. Shifts are always better with you, and even Richard's tired menu tastes better when you do it."

Phil looks up at her. She's his friend and flatmate, possibly his best friend if you can have one of those as an adult, and he’s known her since university, but sometimes he catches sight of her and she looks different. Like he’s only just noticed how different she is from the person he met all those years ago, and it isn't just the addition of several piercings. She’s a force of nature now, a wisp of pink curly hair escaping from the side of her black skull cap that used to be a mid-brown. Her eyes are a deep brown too, her nose small and round and her cheeks full. When she smiles she always tries to hide it, like she’s afraid of showing anyone how happy she is, and yet she never gives up on being eternally optimistic about his life. He loves her, but she's talking nonsense. 

"I just don't see it," he says."Richard's menu is what put this restaurant on the map. He was a dick and I don't blame her for finally firing him, but his menu is the reason people come here. We need someone like him, a public draw, someone the critics can write about. She won't ask me."

Phil has been building a menu since before he can remember. Every time he comes up with a new dish he writes it in a small black notebook he keeps in the pocket of his chef’s trousers. It’s wrinkled and old, the binding flaking away a little because he’s had it since before uni, but on the last page is the carefully cultivated list of every dish he’d offer if he had the choice. The perfect balance of dishes that expresses who he is as a person. Home cooked and traditional but with slight variations, something slightly odd yet endearing. Like him.

It’s just for him, though. A sort of journal of food, a personal representation. _This is me if I was a menu_ kind of thing. He hasn’t thought about doing anything with it other that carrying it around with him on every shift.

"We'll see," Kayleigh says, chopping in to the onion.

Phil just rolls his eyes and turns around to get the rest of the shift set up.

* * *

Beverly does ask him. He's wiping down the sides after his shift, the only person left in the kitchen, although he knows Kayleigh is waiting for him outside so they can walk back to their flat together. 

“Always the last one,” she says behind him.

“Ah!” 

He's startled by her sudden appearance and the sound of his yell echoes back off the clean stack of plates and shiny cookware. 

“Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Have you got a minute?” 

“Yes,” Phil says, “I was just making sure everything was sorted for tomorrow.”

“Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.” 

She leans up against the prep station and folds her arms. She's taken off her blazer and her chiffon shirt sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, revealing pale freckled forearms. 

“Tomorrow?” 

“Yes. And, well, Richard’s role in general.” 

Phil drops the cloth on the counter and turns, facing her without distractions. This feels like the kind of conversation they should have when he is paying attention. 

“I’d like to offer you the role of Head Chef,” she says. Her voice is flat, completely unenthusiastic. 

“Um… are you sure?” 

“Sorry.” She sighs, a big loud rush of air out of her mouth and her shoulders shake a little. “Tonight has been a little hellish, hasn’t it?” 

“The shift went okay,” he clears his throat. “Or at least I thought it did.”

“Yes. Yes, dinner went fine. I meant with… well, everything else.” 

Phil picks up the cloth again, just for something to do with his hands. 

“Richard was quite prolific, as I’m sure you know. But along with his menu, he also had friends in high places, friends who invested in this business. But… I’ve just had word that since I’ve decided not to put up with Richard’s…. Challenging behaviour,” she pauses to purse her lips for a second as if holding back the thing she really wants to say. “They have decided to withdraw their financial support. As such, the restaurant is in trouble.” 

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” she says, “but you need to know what you’re taking on. We need to keep things steady, keep the level of service the same as it has always been and keep cooking Richard’s menu for the foreseeable future. We’ve got to try and get in front of this thing.” 

“And… you think I can do that?” 

“You know the menu, Phil.” 

“Yes, but--” 

“I don’t have time for someone new to get up to speed or for them to want to come in and make their mark by changing everything. I need stability right now. Can you do that?” 

“Um…”

“If it’s about the money, I’m not expecting you to do more work for free. Of course there will be a pay increase based on your experience and--” 

“Fine,” Phil says, cutting her off before she elaborates on just how unspectacular his pay increase is going to be. It will hardly be worth mentioning after tax. “I can give it a go.”

“That’s all I ask.”

* * *

“This is your fucking shot,” Kayleigh says. 

“Hey, language.” 

“Sorry, Chef,” she rolls her eyes and shoots him a defiant look. She’s shoving the short pieces of pink hair at the nape of her neck under the skull cap. She has the rest in a band on top of her head, wild curls pressed flat under the black fabric, but the sections that are too short are always wildly defiant. “You ready to go, though?” 

“I’ve done this before, Kay.” 

“Yeah, when covering for Richard’s sorry arse.You haven’t done it as the boss.” 

“Beverley is the boss.” 

“Not in the kitchen mid-shift,” Kayleigh reminds him, her tunic buttoned up now. She strides over to the sink to wash her hands and picks up gloves to begin the prep. “In here, you are God.” 

“If I’m God,” Phil says, “that makes you… Jesus.” 

“I’m your… son?” Kayleigh smirks. 

“Shut up. No. I mean you’re the sous.” 

“Are you… what?” Kayleigh’s mouth is hanging open and Phil can see the glint of her tongue piercing. 

“Up for it?” Phil asks, grinning at her. 

“Definitely.” She bites her bottom lip, trying to hide the big smile on her face in favour of remaining composed. “Thanks, Phil. It… I mean, you’re gunna need me to stop you literally chopping your own fingers off but… you know…” 

“I know,” Phil says, holding up the two of his fingers currently sporting plasters. There are usually more, but running the shift means he’s had less time to chop things and injure himself. “You’re good Kay, you deserve it.” 

Kayleigh snaps the gloves on to her hands and moves over to the prep station. “Alright nerd, enough mushy stuff. Let’s get your first shift as the big boss on the road, shall we?” 

Phil hears a whoop from the other side of the kitchen as Jack joins in in with the sentiment. He takes a deep breath, swallows down the fear, and gets stuck in.

* * *

Phil can’t even maintain his smile by the end. Running the shift is fine, he makes the right decisions at least mostly, and he enjoys the familiar rhythm of cooking, tasting, making adjustments. 

He’d made the executive decision to switch the soup when they ran out of the fennel needed for Richard’s preferred starter, and he’d whipped up a replacement in the form of his favourite winter vegetable soup with just a hint of chilli. It had been fine, and he’d averted disaster.

But he has to hold himself back, to stick to the rest of Richard’s menu, not deviate from the way he likes the dishes prepared because that’s what Bev had asked for. Consistency. 

He’s trying to deliver that, he really is, but by the end of the shift he just can’t keep his face looking positive about it. 

Jack is leaning over the serve station chatting to Dodie and Ellie who are folding napkins. The porter left a while ago, the dishes are washed and he’d taken the bins out with him as he went, so it’s just Kayleigh and Phil in the kitchen. Kayleigh has taken her skull cap off so that her faded pink curls spring out around her ears. She’s already digging in her pocket for her earrings, putting them back in all the holes, and slipping the ring back into her nose. Phil doesn’t know how she keeps track of what goes where. 

“What’s up with your face?” she asks. 

“My face is just fine,” Phil says. 

Kayleigh rolls her eyes. “Yeah, it’s a perfectly fine face Phil. You know, if I was into dude’s faces I might even wanna do stuff to it. But it’s doing a kind of… sad thing at the moment. What gives?”

“Do you want food?” Phil asks. 

He still has his whites on, and he can’t face going back to the kitchen in their apartment to cook dinner. Even if he has optimised the tiny space as much as he can, there’s nothing like using the restaurant’s extensive ingredients and fancy stovetop. He just needs to flex his own creative wings right now, to cook something for himself without restrictions.

“I could eat,” Kayleigh says. 

She hops up onto the steel countertop, her head barely missing the stack of plates on the shelf above and her feet swinging in front of the pans on the shelves under it. 

Phil stays quiet as he gathers what he needs. Avocado, eggs, lemon, salt, cayenne pepper, and finally, butter. 

He slices fresh bread and toasts it under the grill until it’s just turning golden at the edges. He makes a thick tangy hollandaise and poached eggs, the movements like clockwork, the recipe simple and easy and yet freeing in a way nothing else that he’s made tonight has felt. Finally, he slices the avocado and arranges it all on two plates.

Kayleigh doesn’t even bat an eyelid when he hands it to her, and why should she? This is nothing, it’s unoriginal and basic and yet Phil feels _good_ about it. 

Kayleigh raises her plate under her chin and beings eating without ceremony. Jack and the girls leave by the back door and Phil waves them off with a cheery goodbye and a genuine thank you for a night of hard work. 

Then it’s quiet. The rest of the restaurant is dark beyond the kitchen door and the stark white lights of the kitchen illuminate the reflective surfaces. Phil looks around at the familiar room and lets out a small sigh.

“Do you like Richard’s menu?” he says, not really intending to.

Kayleigh puts the fork down on her plate with a reverberant rattle. “I think the question is, Phil, do _you_ like it.” 

“It’s what got the restaurant on its feet,” he says, slightly dodging the question.

“Yes. But do you like it?”

Phil looks down at his own plate and pushes a bit of egg with his fork. The yolk splits and yellow seeps out, mixing with the hollandaise. 

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s… well, it’s good food isn’t it? Not everyone can come up with something like that.” 

Kayleigh puts her plate down and shifts on the bench. She folds her legs up so she’s sat crossed-legged on the countertop just looking at him. 

“I just mean…” Phil says, not quite meeting her gaze. Kayleigh is a force of nature when she wants to be and he really can’t deal with the power of just her looking disappointed in him. “That Richard’s food is fancy, technically brilliant and complex. That’s what people want. That isn’t my style, you know that.”

“For fucks sake, Phil.”

Phil looks up, meeting the full ferocity of her stern expression. “What?” 

“You need to stop this whole looking down on yourself bullshit.” 

She reaches out and flicks him dead on the end of his nose with a strong finger. 

“Did you just--” Phil rubs at the spot where his skin is stinging. “Ow. You flicked me.” 

“I did,” Kayleigh confirms, picking her plate back up and putting a forkful of egg into her mouth. “Because you’re a fucking idiot. You deserve to be flicked.” 

Phil rubs at his head once more before going back to his meal, it's easier not to argue with Kayleigh once she gets a bee in her bonnet about something. 

“Is that it?” she says. 

“Is what it?”

“I thought this whole thing was you working up to saying you were going to do your own menu. The one you keep in that little book of yours.” She rolls her eyes at his incredulous stare. “Of course I’ve seen it. Shut up. You could do it you know, now that you’re the boss.” 

“No,” Phil says, sighing a little. “I can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

Phil thinks about telling her about the restaurant being in trouble, but decides against it. It won’t do to make her worry about her job and as much as he loves her, she isn’t exactly the most discrete. He doesn’t need everyone else knowing about it. 

“I just… can’t,” he settles for. “Not right now.”

“Fine,” Kayleigh says. “I mean, I stand by the fact that you are an idiot. But fine. Not yet, but soon Phil, okay?”

“Maybe,” he says, and they finish their meal in silence.

* * *

A couple of weeks later and he's still cooking Richard's menu. He dodges Kayleigh's questions about it, grits his teeth, and muddles through. It's all he can do.

With work taking everything out of him, Phil wakes up on a Sunday morning feeling like he wants to do something fun and for Phil, fun means food, it means cooking, and he knows just what he wants to do with his day. 

There’s a farmer’s market a forty minute tube ride from his flat where they sell the best fresh ingredients. He has his heart set on the perfect stew. Fresh vegetables and just the right amount of warming spices. It reminds him of being at home at this time of year, back when his mum would make them come in from playing in the cold for a hot meal. He and Martyn would traipse inside with their wet boots, their cheeks and noses pink, their breaths misting in the air, and their family would all sit down together. 

Kayleigh is in the kitchen jabbing at the button on the kettle that just won't stay down no matter how hard she tries. She lets out a loud roar and picks the kettle up with both hands before Phil intervenes.

“Whoa,” he says, reaching over her head and using his considerable height advantage to pluck the kettle from her hands. “The kettle is too young to die.”

“It doesn't fucking work, Phil. Please, have pity, I need coffee.”

Phil looks at the kettle in his hand and tests the weight of it. 

“Kay…” he says, “did you even put water in?”

Kayleigh groans again and drops her face in to her hands. She's got last night's eyeliner leaving black smudges on her palms, her hair is a wild mess of curls somewhat matted at the back of her head, and she's wearing pyjamas bottoms underneath the short black dress Phil knows she changed into after her shift last night. 

“Sit down,” he says, walking the kettle over to the sink.

“Ugh, thank you. You are a god amongst men, truly.”

“I know,” Phil grins. “I'm the best. So, did you have a good time last night?” 

“Mmm.”

“Did you meet up with that girl?”

“Lara,” Kayleigh supplies. “And yeah, she was there.” 

Phil lets her sit in silence while he makes the coffee; she really does make a bit of a pathetic figure, sitting there with her hangover, and Phil has always had a soft spot for small helpless things that need saving. 

“What time did you get in?” he says once the coffee is finished. 

He slides it across the table at her and she grasps at it with eager hands. 

“About four. Lara got off her bar shift at midnight too so we met somewhere.”

“Sounds like you had fun.” Phil takes a sip of his own coffee and leans back in his chair. 

“You should have come with.”

Phil shakes his head. Going out after the dinner shift isn't something he likes to do, even less so when it's a shift in which he has to cook things he hates. 

“I wouldn't have wanted to get in the way of you and Lara. Did she come back here? Should I make her coffee too?” 

“She didn't come back here.”

“Kay, did you go to her house and then leave straight after? I've told you not to do that.”

Kayleigh shakes her head, a cloud of pink shifting around her ears. “I didn't go to her’s.” 

“Oh. Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out.”

Kayleigh smirks, just the corner of her mouth crooking up a little. “I didn't say it didn't work out.”

“Kayleigh Annette Warborough if you had sex in a public bathroom… we said we weren't going to do that any more. Did you learn nothing at uni?”

Kayleigh laughs, “God, Phil. Chill. I didn't. I agree, not after that one time in the student union, I can't believe I had to listen to you bang that guy in the next stall.”

“Tequila,” Phil argues, “you know how I get.”

“Yes, well. There was no tequila last night. And no one got defiled in a public toilet.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Actually…” Kayleigh says, her voice quiet like she doesn’t want what she’s about to say to be overheard. “We just talked. A lot. I drank too many gin and tonics because I just lost track. She's nice.”

Kayleigh has a small, secretive smile on her face. Like she's trying to hide it. He can see why, it isn't like she's usually like this about anyone. He hasn't seen her be happy to just sit and talk to someone in a while.

“That's good,” he encourages her.

“I walked her home after, then I kissed her goodnight and didn't go inside for a coffee. She did ask me, but I told her…” Kayleigh's cheeks go pink and she dips her head to look in her cup. “I told her I wanted to take it slow.”

“Oh, Kay…” Phil says, not bothering to hide the shock in his voice. 

“I know, god I know, I'm going soft.”

“That isn't a bad thing,” Phil says. “I'm glad. You deserve to find someone nice.” 

“Yeah well, we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know if I’m cut out for all of that. You deserve someone too, Phil,” she says, standing to take his coffee cup from him. She stacks them in the dishwasher. “I mean, if you ever went out you might find someone.”

“I go out,” Phil protests. “I'm going to the market this morning in fact.” 

“Whoa, you steady on. Farmers market on a Sunday, you party animal.”

“Shut up. Do you want to come with?”

“Nah,” she stretches her arms over her head, rolling up onto her tiptoes. Her toenails are painted black and sparkly. “I'm going for a long bath and then I'm going to eat whatever it is you're planning to cook.”

“Stew.”

“Mama Lester's stew?” 

“A variation thereof, yes.”

Kayleigh grins. “Brilliant.”

* * *

The market is colourful and loud and Phil likes weaving himself in to the crowd, getting lost amongst the busy chaos of it. 

The air is full of the scent of fresh spices, shouts of the stall holders, and Phil breathes it in. He doesn't buy everything straight away, instead he takes his time winding around the stalls, just enjoying the atmosphere.

He's on his second lap, and thinking of exactly which mushrooms he wants, when someone collides with him. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, even though arguably it wasn’t his fault. It’s just the done thing, isn’t it? 

“No,” a voice says near his ear, “my fault.” 

Phil turns to look at his assailant and finds himself staring into a pair of warm chocolate eyes, a dusting of freckles along one cheekbone. 

“Sorry,” Phil repeats. 

The guy smiles, and Phil is gone. He has to tilt his head up slightly to look at him, which is a novelty Phil didn’t know he was missing in his life, and he’s got a bloody dimple in one cheek which is just ridiculous. Phil wasn’t sure they actually made people that look like this guy outside of his own fantasies. 

“You said that.”

Phil knows his face has gone red, he knows he is starting to look like a babbling idiot but this guy is still smiling at him. He can barely find words. 

This is usually the moment where they'd go their own separate ways. There is no reason for them to continue the conversation but the guy isn't leaving. 

"I'm Dan," he says. 

It takes Phil a moment to understand the context of that sentence, and what exactly it means. 

"I'm... Phil," he says.

Dan's laugh is bright and sudden, showing all his teeth and that ridiculously attractive dimple. 

"Are you sure?" he says. 

"Yup," Phil says, "for almost my whole life." 

"Almost?"

Dan raises a solitary eyebrow at him and Phil's stomach swoops.

"Yes," he nods, a touch too enthusiastically. "I mean, for some of it I was Philip, at least whenever my grandparents were talking to me, or if I was in trouble. And for a bit when I was really little I couldn't say my own name so I called myself Dibbit. But now I'm just Phil." 

For God's sake, Phil could swear he used to be better at this. He can be charming when he wants to be, or at least charmingly odd in that kind of odd way he has. People have found it endearing in the past, _men_ have found it endearing on multiple occasions, but it appears he left that skill back in uni when he stopped having casual hook ups. 

Now the sight of one devastatingly attractive man is enough to turn him into a babbling idiot.

"Well, 'just Phil', it was nice to meet you." 

Phil doesn't know why he feels a bit sad to be saying goodbye to this stranger. That's what normally happens when you accidentally bump into someone, he has no reason to keep talking to him. 

But he really wants to. 

"Good to meet you too, Dan." 

Dan nods at him and then he's walking away, threading his way into the crowd. Phil watches him go for a second, longer than is strictly normal in this situation, but he enjoys looking at the slope of Dan's shoulders under a black coat, disappearing into a sea of people. 

Phil shakes himself and makes his feet turn back the way he was going. Chestnut mushrooms, he thinks, for the stew. 

He's collected his mushrooms, and a few other things he needs, and he's heading out of the market when his stomach makes a quiet rumble. It's about lunch time, and he won't be eating the stew until dinner, so he thinks he can probably stop off at one of the food stalls for something to eat. 

There are so many of them that Phil just joins the first queue he comes to. The stall is selling some kind of paella cooked in a huge pot. It smells amazing, but the line isn't moving very fast. 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and is scrolling down his Twitter feed when he senses someone walk up beside him. 

"Smells good but it isn't worth eating if you ask me." 

Phil turns to the timbre of the voice, already smiling before he really knows why, and finds Dan looking at him with a small crooked smile. He's got his hands in his coat pockets and his shoulders hunched against the cold. 

"No?" 

Dan shakes his head. 

"An expert on these things are you?" Phil asks. 

"Hm," Dan says, "I guess you could say that."

"Okay, Mr. expert, where do you recommend?"

“Come with me.”

Phil steps easily out of the queue, because how do you not go easily when a man as gorgeous as this one is beckoning you onward. It’s dreadful for his self restraint, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t like to deny himself the things he likes, not when he feels like he’s earned them. 

And maybe he hasn’t earned this, a man this bloody attractive leading him to supposed good food, but he’ll take it. He can always make up for it later. 

Dan leads him over to a much smaller stall without much of a queue. Fajitas, Phil recognises them, the scent of it making his mouth water. It smells amazing, but there is no one lining up so Phil feels a little bit skeptical. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

“Trust me.” Dan walks up to the stall and places his order. “Any allergies?”

“No,” Phil says. “Well… I mean, I’m kind of lactose intolerant. And my mouth does a weird burning thing with chocolate pineapple and coconut but I’ve never really paid much attention to those things.” 

Dan gives him a bit of an incredulous look, but has seemingly run out of words. 

“I know,” Phil says. “But honestly, it’s not a problem.” 

“Okay, another one but with no sour cream and no cheese?” 

“The sour cream is fine,” Phil says. “I can have dairy in small quantities. No cheese though, I hate cheese.” 

There’s that incredulous look again. 

“People always looks like that.”

“Well… it's cheese.”

Phil shrugs at him. He heard it enough in culinary school and then even more once he actually started placements. 

“I know,” Phil says. “But… Blergh.”

“Blergh?”

“Blergh.”

Dan smiles, that dimple appearing again. Phil is struck by how much his whole face seems taken up with smiling. Some people only smile with their mouth, or maybe also with their eyes. Dan smiles with his whole face, hell, maybe his whole body.

“Can't argue with that,” Dan says, turning back to collect their orders.

There are some fold-out tables and chairs a short distance away from the stalls and they grab an empty one on the edge of the crowd.

“Thanks,” Phil says when he realises Dan has paid for their food.

“Anything to entice you to better food,” Dan says. 

He has about four different dips in little cartons that he lines up across the top of the cardboard tray holding his fajita. 

“Are you going to eat all of those?” Phil asks.

“Don't dip shame me.”

Phil laughs, “wouldn't dream of it.”

They eat for a little while. Phil is surprised at how the silence doesn't feel heavy, even though he doesn't know this person and that would usually be awkward. Something about Dan makes him feel happy to just sit and eat. And Dan is right, the food is good.

“You agree with me,” Dan says. 

“Huh?”

“Fajitas,” Dan says, “Better than the paella.”

“Alright. I'll give you that one, they're good. I have quite high standards usually.”

Dan's mouth crook up at one side and he licks his lips. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Phil nods, trying not to stare. “I'm a chef.”

That gives him pause. He doesn't usually say it like that, usually it's just ‘I work in a restaurant’ or ‘I cook’, but he supposes with him stepping in to fill Richard's role for a while, Chef is as.good a way to describe it as any. For a while at least.

“Oh,” Dan says with a short nod. “Cool.”

“What about you?” Phil asks, because he wants to direct the conversation away from his job. It’s not that he’s embarrassed, but if he is forced to talk about it in detail, how he’s just covering the role for a much better chef because they can’t afford anyone else, it would make him burn from the inside with shame. 

“I… write,” Dan says. 

“Like an author?” 

“Like a journalist.”

Phil nods, “interesting.” 

“It can be.” 

Dan doesn’t offer any more information, but he does start in on the third dip. Phil only barely suppresses a chuckle. 

“No shaming,” Dan repeats. 

Phil just grins and picks up a napkin to wipe at his mouth. “So what about outside of work?”

“Sorry?”

“I just meant, other than visiting farmers markets and eating them out of condiments, what do you do with your time outside of work?”

Dan purses his lips with exasperated amusement. “Rude. But, I mean, not a lot.” 

“What, nothing? No hobbies?”

“Not unless you count binge-watching anime and falling down wikipedia search holes on a daily basis a hobby.”

Dan looks a little shame-faced, like he’s loathed to admit these things, but a little surprised he said it. 

“Anime, huh?”

Phil slides his food container out of the way and leans back in his chair. He stretches his legs out, long enough so that his feet come to rest at the side of Dan’s chair on the other side of the table. 

Dan glances down at Phil’s feet and smiles quietly. 

“That a problem?”

“Actually…” 

They talk. They talk for so long that their food is gone and the sun has started to dip down in the sky. Dan’s face is illuminated in a golden glow and Phil’s fingers are cold under the cuffs of his coat. 

“Whoa,” Dan says, looking at his phone screen. 

It had been vibrating on the table at his elbow but he hadn’t picked it up once. Not until they’d covered anime and television and films they both liked, not until Phil could feel his cheeks hurting from smiling, until he was so lost in the deep brown of Dan’s eyes he thought he’d never come up for air. 

“Hm?”

“It’s getting late,” Dan says. 

Phil presses at the screen of his own phone to illuminate it and sees the time. “God, yeah. Plus, it’s getting a bit cold to be sat outside like this.”

“I…” Dan clears his throat, “I’d really like to suggest we relocate to somewhere indoors, get coffee or something.”

Phil’s stomach swoops. He wants that, he can see the scene already, Dan sat across from him in the fragrant warmth of Starbucks. But he’d promised Kayleigh dinner, and he does have his heart set on wanting to cook something. He can’t waste the day away talking to a man he barely knows. One he wants to know.

“But,” Dan continues, “I said I’d meet my friend Dean this evening. A work thing.” 

“Sure,” Phil nods, trying not to let how disappointed he is show on his face. It wouldn’t do to be disappointed over something he can’t do anyway. “I have to go cook dinner for my flatmate anyway. She’s currently suffering with a hangover and girl trouble.”

“I know the feeling,” Dan says. 

Oh. Phil feels something sour rise in his chest at that. 

“No,” Dan corrects. “I mean the hangover. I wish I had a chef around cooking dinner for me when I’m hungover.” 

“Well, that could… you know, be arranged.” 

It’s clumsy and awkward, words tripping over themselves as they tumble out of his mouth. Damn. He swears he used to be good at this. 

“Go out with me,” Dan says, suddenly. His own words coming out a little rushed. 

“Okay.”

He answers too quickly, everything is happening too quickly. It’s exhilarating.

“I want to buy you dinner,” Dan says. He has that whole-face smile again, crinkling the skin around his eyes and lighting him up from the inside. 

Phil regards him for a moment, schooling the beating of his heart with a heavy breath in. 

“Okay,” he says, “but I’m going to pick the restaurant. Give me your number.” 

“A man who takes charge, huh?” Dan says, holding a hand out for Phil’s phone. 

“I’ve been known to, occasionally,” he says, and hands his phone over.

* * *

Phil is still distracted thinking about Dan when he arrives at work the next day. Kayleigh had commented on how out of character he’d seemed over dinner, but he hadn’t said anything, because Dan felt like the kind of thing he wanted to keep to himself for a bit. Just until they’ve had a proper date, to see whether he really is as wonderful as Phil thinks he is. 

He hadn’t waited twenty-four hours or any of that kind of nonsense. He doesn’t want to play games. So he’d texted Dan that evening.

_Phil: You free next Sunday?_

_Dan: i could be_

_Phil: Great ^_^ looking forward to it_

He went to bed smiling.

Woke up smiling. 

He can’t stop thinking about him, which is probably why he doesn’t notice how apprehensive Jack, Dodie and Ellie look. Jack has a copy of the paper in his hand, open to the food & drink section, and it takes him approaching Phil with it before Phil asks what is going on. 

“Just… you gotta read this man,” Jack thrusts the paper at him, bumping against the back of Phil’s hand with the edges of it. 

Phil looks down, taking hold of the paper reflexively. It’s open to a popular food critic’s column, one Phil knows well. They’ve written favourable things about Richard before today, and while the guy isn’t a household name or anything, in food circles, people have just enough respect for his opinion that a good or bad review from him can change a restaurant’s performance over night. 

It’s probably why no one knows what he looks like or why he writes under a pseudonym; if anyone knew who he was, he’d be subject to hate, bribery, and sucking up in equal measure. 

The headlines reads **Missing a Golden opportunity**

“What have they said?” Phil asks, not daring to read the rest of the article. 

Jack shakes his head, “Don’t make me say it, mate. It ain’t good, just read it. Third paragraph, after he’s done waffling about that new Japanese place.” 

Phil takes a breath and looks back down at the page. 

_You’re probably all aware by now of Richard O’Malley’s departure from our long-time favourite establishment, The Golden Saucer. What we have yet to determine is who it is that has taken over the position as Head Chef. O’Malley’s are some pretty big boots to fill so it came as a shock to me when I visited last week, to find that they are still attempting to serve the same menu under their new leadership. No attempt has been made to change or rejuvenate their offering so one can only assume the change in head chef was done with very little notice. Needless to say, whoever the new chef is has found it hard to keep up with the demands of O’Malley’s menu, they lack the passion and finesse needed to pull off the complicated dishes. The only place they do shine is in their rustic soup starter, where the new chef’s obvious preference for the classic over the innovative is apparent._

_I don’t give out one-star reviews often, because they seem unnecessarily cruel, but in this case I see no other option. I hold out hope that we’ll see something new from them soon but for now, it just isn’t quite up to snuff._

_One Star_.

“One fucking Star? Has there ever been one-star before? Shit,” Phil says, uncharacteristically foul-mouthed in his kitchen. “Has Bev seen this?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack says, “I certainly ain’t shown her.”

“It’s probably only a matter of time,” Phil says. 

“They liked your soup though,” Jack points out. 

“Hm.”

Phil keeps the paper clutched in his hand as Jack walks away. His knuckles are white and the words of the article keep appearing behind his eyes when he closes them to take a steadying breath. _Lacks the passion and finesse needed_. He can’t do this, he’s going to lose his job, or if he doesn’t get completely fired Bev is going to seriously hang him out to dry. The restaurant can’t survive this kind of scathing review. 

“You look like you did that time you mixed up the salt and sugar on demo day at uni.” Kayleigh has sidled up next to him. She reaches out and tugs the paper from his grasp, close the pages so that the review disappears from view. “Don’t listen to some stupid critic.”

“He’s got some pull, though,” Phil says, “anyone who is anyone listens to him. I can’t do this.” 

“Richard’s menu is all flash and no substance,” Kayleigh says, clearly being as blunt as she likes about all of this. “And you know that.”

“But it’s what people want,” Phil insists. 

“It isn’t,” Kayleigh says, rolling the paper up lengthways to form a cylinder and throwing it javelin-style into the large blue bin. “It’s just… fancy yogurt lids.” 

Phil shakes his head reflexively before realising what it is she’s just said. “What?”

“You know,” Kayleigh says, “Yogurt.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” 

Kayleigh sighs, like this is a perfectly simple. 

“I met this guy once, who worked in a yogurt factory, he told me all about it. They make this big old vat of yogurt, right? Strawberry yogurt, say. And they put the yogurt in to all these different pots, some with fancy tops to them, some with the supermarket own-brand labels, and they ship it out all over the country. But it’s the same yogurt, just with different lids.” 

Phil blinks at her, and shakes his head again, still not getting it. 

“Richard’s food isn’t that fancy,” she explains. “It’s just normal stuff made up to look like it’s fancy. He takes strawberry yogurt made in the same vat as everyone else and because it’s got his name on it he can call it… summer berry swirl or some shit. There isn’t any heart in it, Phil. It’s just an illusion.”

“That’s all well and good,” Phil says, “but what do I do about it?”

“I’ve told you,” Kayleigh says, fishing her skull cap out of her pocket and tying her hair up under it. “Make your own menu, Phil. Make strawberry yogurt and call it strawberry yogurt, but make it the best damn yogurt anyone ever had.” 

She pats him on the shoulder and walks away, knowing him well enough to know that if she stays he’ll just find some way to argue with her, to beat himself up about this over and over again. As it is, she leaves him with the idea and with no way to rail against it. 

His own menu. The things in that little black notebook actually coming to fruition is so far beyond anything he’d ever considered as a possibility it would take a kind of miracle for him to get up the courage enough to show anyone. Willingly, anyway.

He probably won’t get a chance to even think about it anyway. Bev is probably going to fire him the minute she reads this article, but that doesn't mean he has to go down without a fight.

* * *

Phil keeps his head above water the whole week. He gets through his shifts, cooks Richard’s menu, and tries to focus on the good things. 

Like Dan. 

They text most days, starting usually with Dan commenting on a TV show, or perhaps something he found on WIkipedia, and then with Phil replying almost immediately. The only times he can’t reply are while he’s working, but Dan is usually still there to read his replies when he finishes work, and they pick up where they left out as though there hadn’t been a gap. 

By the time Phil texts him the details of the restaurant, they’ve been in solid contact for the better part of a week. 

Phil focusses on that, and not on the menu at all. He cooks Richard’s food, stays out of Bev’s way, and tries not to think about how bored he is, how he _lacks passion_. Kayleigh doesn’t mention strawberry yoghurt again, but that’s probably because he’s working hard to avoid the topic.

He meets Dan at the restaurant. He’d thought that he should pick him up, go to the door, bring flowers, all of that usual stuff. But Dan didn’t go much for usual, which was probably for the best because Phil didn’t know how good he’d be at any of it. It wasn’t like he had much practise with usual. 

He’d chosen sushi. Mostly because it was nothing like the stuff he cooked, he saw enough of that during the week, but also because Dan mentioned it one evening during texting and Phil liked the idea of it, of sharing a meal they both enjoyed. 

“Nice choice,” Dan say, meeting him at the door. His cheeks are flushed with cold, and the dark evening air looks good on him. 

“Glad you approve,” Phil says. “Since you disapproved of my choices at the market.” 

“This is much better.”

“Have you been here before?” 

Dan smiles, it almost looks rueful, like there is a joke Phil is missing. “Once. I liked it.” 

“Well, I haven’t actually, but it got good reviews.”

With the final tail end of that secretive smile, Dan pulls on the door and holds it open for Phil to walk through. 

They’re seated and they order without incident. The conversation is just as easy in person as it has been via text. 

“I’m telling you,” Dan says, laughing in to his water glass. “It’s jumped the shark. I’m over it.” 

“I don’t know,” Phil shrugs, his fingers resting on the base of his own glass, tapping lightly. A drop of condensation rolls down the side, splashing on to his fingertip. “I’m reserving judgement.” 

Dan laughs fondly, “You and your loyalty to bad TV.” 

Phil wonders if it’s supposed to be this easy. If it’s normal for someone to get some of your foibles from just one impromptu lunch and a week of texting. This isn’t how it usually goes. 

“So how has your week been?” Dan asks. 

“Good. Fine.” Phil takes a sip of his water. “Alright.” 

“Wow. You went from Good to just Alright in the space of like 2 seconds. What’s up?”

This probably isn’t good first date conversation. Complaining about his job when you’re trying to get to know someone doesn’t set a good precedent, but it feels different with Dan. Like he already knows him a little bit. 

“We just… Well, you’re a journalist. You probably know how it all works.” 

“Hm?” Dan says, “How what works?”

“So there’s this food critic, they’re kind of a big deal in the restaurant world--”

At that moment their food arrives, the server placing it in the middle of their table. Dan looks up and smiles and thanks her. It make Phil smile, to see how easily that kind of nicety comes to him. 

“You were saying?” 

He doesn’t tuck in right away, Phil watches while he waits for Phil to finish his story. Like he has all the time in the world to listen. 

“Yeah, um… well, our restaurant got a bad review. It’s kind of… well, it’s not good.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. I mean I wouldn’t usually be upset but I’m not even cooking my own menu. I took over from this guy before and was asked to stick to his stuff and….” Phil sighs, “I don’t know. It’s just been a bit of a hard week. Sorry, I don’t mean to bring the whole mood down.” 

“Where… um, where was it you said you worked?” 

“The Golden Saucer.” 

Dan nods, but he doesn’t respond right away. Phil supposes that it is kind of difficult for him to understand when it isn’t really his area of expertise. 

“Anyway, that’s that,” Phil says. “Besides, my week just got a hell of a lot better.” 

Dan breaks out of his confused silence with a smile that wrinkles his eyes and shows all of his top teeth. “Yeah?” 

“Definitely.”

Dinner flies by. They stretch it out through dessert and a cocktail, but all too soon it’s time for them to go. Dan tries to pay, arguing that he’d been the one to ask Phil out, but Phil won’t hear of it. He’d paid for the fajitas, and Phil had picked the restaurant, so he wants to pay. He wants to feel as though he’s the one that’s done this. 

“I’ll get it next time then,” Dan says, just like that. Like it’s a foregone conclusion. 

“There’ll be a next time?” 

Dan lets his hand fall on top of Phil’s for a second from across the table. “If you want to.” 

Phil doesn’t have to help him with his coat or stand on any ceremony at all. Dan keeps a smile on his face all the way out to the curb and he comes in close on the cold pavement. 

“Uber is about two minutes away,” he says. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off?” 

“I’m a big boy,” Dan says, “I’ll be fine.”

Two minutes doesn’t feel like enough time, not for everything Phil wants to do. Talk to him, put his arms around him, maybe. He isn’t really sure, he just knows he doesn’t want to leave yet. 

“What about you?”

“Hm? What? Sorry.” 

“Have I lost you already?” Dan says. 

“No, definitely not. No.” Phil smiles, takes a chance and reaches out, folding his arms around Dan’s wool coat. It feels warm, Dan’s body solid yet yielding to his touch. “Just distracted.” 

“Hmm, yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“What are you distracted by, Phil?” 

Their noses are close, so close he can feel the cold of Dan’s skin against his own and he thinks _fuck it_. Life is too short, and Dan is too gorgeous not to at least take a chance when it’s presented to him. 

He presses their lips together, swallowing down a surprised gasp that huffs out of Dan’s mouth. He is hot, plush, and wanting. He allows Phil’s tongue to sweep against his eagerly, a little messy and wet. Phil pulls him closer, feels the heat of him, how much he wants it. 

Dan’s phone vibrates in his pocket and they are so close Phil can feel it. 

“That’s me,” Dan says, his face lit by the illumination of headlights coming to a stop by the curb. 

Phil looks over at the silver car and curses it silently. 

“I’ll see you?” Dan asks. His voice, for the first time, sounds a little unsure. 

Phil’s lips are still tingling with the lingering touch of Dan’s so he can’t find any words. Instead he smiles, nods with just as much enthusiasm as he feels and hopes he doesn’t look like and idiot. 

“Goodnight Phil,” Dan says, climbing in to the car. 

“Goodnight,” Phil manages, just as the door is closing.

* * *

Phil rides the high of their date all the way into work the next day. He can’t really name how he’s feeling. He feels light, and excited, his mind flitting back to last night and the way Dan had kissed him. Something squirms in his stomach, fizzing delightfully. He feels strong, and brave, like he could do anything. 

“What’s with you today?” Kayleigh asks on the walk from the tube stop. 

“Nothing.” 

“You’re smiling like an idiot.” 

“I’m not,” he insists. But even as he says it his cheeks push out into a grin. 

“Whatever.” 

He’s happy, and he’s having a hard time thinking of anything other than Dan, but he can still tell something is bugging her. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.”

“Kay, come on. You can tell me.” 

Kay just pulls her phone out of her pocket and Phil can see her scrolling down twitter over her shoulder. 

“Is this about Lara?” 

“Why would it be?” Kayleigh says. She’s got her hair shoved under a black beanie, a matching black titanium ring in her nose. 

“Because the last I heard you were taking it slow, but then… nothing.”

“So?”

“So... “ Phil takes a breath. He knows Kayleigh, has known her for years. He’s seen her with people before, in relationships and out of them, he knows how she works. Or, at least he knows how she used to work, and how this is different. “You said you liked her.”

“I… yeah. I do.” 

She’s ducked her head, looking down at her black fishnets and yellow boots. She’s had those boots as long as Phil’s known her, she’d been wearing them when they met. Her in her yellow boots and him in his bright green t-shirt, they had been the only ones that hadn’t got the memo about formal dress at their orientation so of course they’d bonded immediately. 

“Then why haven’t you called her?”

“I don’t know Phil. I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to be scared,” he says, “I’m sure she likes you too.”

“Whatever.” 

“Kay…” he says, stopping her for a moment with a hand on the top of her arm. “Not whatever. Will you call her, please?”

“Maybe.” 

“Maybe?”

“Fine,” She shakes him off, fondly. “I will. Jeez Lester, get off my back.” 

Phil laughs, following her into the restaurant. 

He feels buoyant. His date had gone well despite his nerves, even Kayleigh is facing her fears. He feels like her could do anything. 

Which is probably why, when they get to work, he makes his excuses and walks straight up to Bev’s office. 

“Come in,” she says when he knocks. 

“Bev? Can I have a word?” 

“Phil, yes, come in.” 

She beckons him around the door and he steps into the small office. It’s upstairs, next to a furniture store room. There’s a small safe in the corner where the night’s takings go at the end of the shift, front of house staff or Bev herself cashing it up. 

“I wanted to talk to you about… well I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see--” 

“If you’re here about the review, Phil, I’ve seen it.” 

“Oh.”

“I’m in the process of… well. What did you want to say? I don’t need an apology.” 

She has another big set of earrings in today. Large amber beads shaped like teardrops and they swing heavily in her lobes as she moves her head. Her hair is scooped up into a bun the way it usually is except for a stray strand of hair that has drifted out at the nape of her neck. 

“I didn’t come to-- I mean, of course I’m sorry we got a bad review, and anything I do to…” he sighs, his happy mood seeping out of him more and more as time goes on. 

“Well, then what is it?” She rests her arms on the desktop, the numerous bangles on her wrist jangling musically. “Sorry Phil, I’m just really busy right now. I’m going out of town for a few weeks to see if I can rustle up some more investment. I might have a fish ready to bite but I just have to--” 

She sighs, linking her fingers together overtop of an open notebook page. She takes a breath, just for a second, and then sets her face in a stoic smile. 

“You came here to ask me something?” 

“Um, yeah.” He moves further in to the room, standing opposite her desk. He doesn’t sit down on the leather chair she has for guests because he doesn’t feel like one. He’s riding high on pure adrenaline and he needs to get this out before he loses his nerve. “Actually, it’s about investors, or like, getting us some better press. Better than the review.” 

“Oh?”

“I thought I could maybe come up with a new menu. The review said it wasn’t so much the food as it was my execution, you know? They liked the soup, and that was mine. So, like, I was thinking we could--”

“Phil.” 

She interrupted him so abruptly that Phil is left mid-sentence with his mouth still open. At the hard look on her face he closes it sharply so that his teeth click together. 

“Look. It’s great that you’re trying to come up with solutions, using your initiative…” the enthusiasm she’s trying to portray doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “But, Phil, I’m sorry that isn’t what we need right now.” 

“But I--” 

“Phil, we need consistency. I told you. I can’t ask people to invest in a business with a new, untested menu.”

“I’m happy to run a test evening,” Phil say. “Invite some regulars, get some opinions.” 

She shakes her head slowly, earrings swaying gently to and fro. 

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Phil doesn’t try to fight it, he knows a losing battle when he sees one. 

“Consistency,” she repeats. “Richard’s menu, the same as always. Something familiar, a known quantity people can invest in. Honestly, Phil, the only thing we need to do in light of this review is for you to buckle down and try to find some of the.. I don’t know, passion. Or whatever it is you need to find to just… carry on.” 

Phil forces his shoulders to drop, tries not to let his body show how defeated he feels. “Sure, Bev.” 

“It’s just not the right time.”

“Yeah, yeah no worries. It was just… no big deal. Thanks for your time, I know you’re busy.” 

He turns quickly, before she has time to say anything more to further this tight, leaden feeling in his chest. He heads back down the stairs, into the main body of the restaurant and then around the corner, through the swing door and in to the kitchen.

“Right,” he announces as the bright lights hit him, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

He’s surprised Kayleigh doesn’t mention it until a few days later. Bev has already left and Phil’s the one running the show all on his own, so perhaps she is offering him a bit of a reprieve. 

But it doesn’t last so long that she forgets about it. 

“I thought you were going to ask Bev about the menu,” Kayleigh says. “So how come I’m prepping the same sodding dishes I’ve always prepped, Phil.”

Phil turns around, slightly harried from telling Jack that yes, he does actually have to work tomorrow evening because there isn’t anyone to cover his shift. He hates this part of it, the Bev part, he isn’t cut out for management really. He just wants to cook. 

At this point, it doesn’t even matter if it’s Richard’s menu.

“And I thought you were going to call Lara and finally give up on this whole ‘I don’t do commitment’ shit, but here we are.”

It’s cruel, and he wouldn’t normally have brought up the Lara thing because he does know that it’s difficult for her. But he can’t stand how she’s constantly hounding him to chase dreams that he isn’t even sure he has, and yet she gets to act exactly as she wants to. As if those things don’t apply to her too. 

“Wow.”

“Ugh,” Phil picks up a knife and sidles up to the other side of the prep station. He picks up an onion and places on the cutting board. He starts cutting it without thinking, the blade slicing through it with ease, practised movements he doesn’t even have to think about. “Sorry.”

“What is going on with you,” Kayleigh asks after a moment of silence. “This isn't the Phil I know and love.”

“I don't know,” the knife falls to the bench with a clatter and Phil stares down at it, his reflection distorted in the metal surface. “Everything is just… nothing is like I thought it would be.”

Kayleigh puts her own knife down and levels him with a stare Phil can see in his peripheral vision. 

“You're the only one that has the power to change that,” she says, “if you just fuck about not taking any risks nothing is going to change. Is it?” 

Phil sighs and doesn't look up. He still thinks she's being hypocritical, but he doesn't know how to call her out on that without letting his frustrations take over. 

“I'm dealing with my Lara shit. I'm going to call but I'm doing it on my own timeline. At least I'm big enough to admit when I'm scared.”

“I'm not scared,” Phil says. 

He finally looks up, meet her defiant glare with a matching one. 

“Sure about that?”

“I asked her, alright?” Phil balls his hands into fists, resting his knuckles on the metal countertop and pushing until the skin turns white. “I asked and she said no.”

He can hear Jack clattering about behind them, Dodie and Ellie are chattering about god knows what just past the serving hatch, and they've only got about half an hour before the first reservation comes in. It sounds like a normal shift but over near the prep table, you could cut the tension with a knife.

“So?” Kayleigh says, eventually. 

“So?” Phil scoffs, “so it doesn't matter, Kay. We can't change anything, it doesn't matter what I do. The Saucer is in trouble, Richard's menu is the only thing we have. That's where Bev is right now, she's trying to get other investors because Richard took his with him.”

“So fuck the lot of them,” Kayleigh says. Her voice is level and calm where Phil's is pitching a little high. Her eyes are steely and Phil wishes he had even an ounce of her bravery. 

“Kay--”

“No, Phil. I mean it. If the Saucer is in as much trouble as you say it is, then fuck them. Let's go down fighting, let's go down with your menu. Let's change some shit.”

Phil's mouth is dry. His hands are still braced on the counter and his stomach twists with a desperate kind of expectation.

“I met someone,” he says. 

That is what it takes to change Kayleigh's face. Her brows raise, eyes wide and surprised. 

“Who?”

Phil smiles, the tension draining from his shoulders, fingers falling lax by his sides.

“His name is Dan.” His voice is changed, moving around the shape of a smile he doesn't really intend. 

“And you like him?”

Phil thinks of Dan across the table in the restaurant. He think of the gentle way his heart had raced, the flush of heat when their mouths had touched. 

“Yeah.”

Kayleigh makes a soft sound of approval. 

“Then we're already changing things,” Kayleigh says. “What have we got to lose?”

Phil reaches into his pocket and balances the small black book on his palm. The pages are grey-yellow with faded lines on them, covered in his messy scrawl in inks of different colours. He turns it over, the cover delicate and crinkled, and opens it to the back page. 

There, with some entries crossed out and replaced with improvements, is the menu he’s been imagining for as long as he can remember. He breathes in through his nose, looking up to see Kayleigh’s mad and wide-eyed stare egging him on. 

"Okay,” he says, breath escaping him in a rush, his voice pitched loud so that the rest of the kitchen pauses, the clatter of dishes and pans momentarily silenced. “There is going to be a bit of a change tonight."

* * *

“That,” Kayleigh says, pitching her skull cap across the bench and shaking out her hair. It’s wild, still damp around her temples form the heat in the room. “Was fucking amazing.” 

“Language,” Phil says, the corners of his mouth fighting a wide smile. 

It had been amazing. All of the dishes he’d made had sold well and there hadn't been any feedback from the floor that said people were unhappy about the change, even without a formally printed menu to choose from. In fact, Phil had been called out to people's tables twice to receive a hearty compliment and handshake. Hopefully he hadn't put in too poor of a showing. 

“Screw language,” Kayleigh says, running a hand through the short hair at the base of her neck. “Are you a chef or what? Ramsey would be ashamed of your constant insistence to keep this place PG-13.”

Phil just rolls his eyes and shoots her a hand gesture that is definitely not PG. So what if he doesn’t want his workplace to turn into a cacophony of profanity and shouting. He’d much rather keep the kitchen as calm as is possible.

“It was good, Phil. Really good.” She's digging in her pockets for all of her jewellery, putting if back in one by one.

“Yeah.”

“I'm in the mood to celebrate. Drink?”

Phil shakes his head, “I think I need to like… lay down. And process. Plus… I have a date with Dan tomorrow. I'm going to cook him dinner.”

“Does that mean I need to clear out of the flat?”

“I mean… you don't _have_ to, but I won't be held responsible for what you see.”

“Ugh, no thanks.” She screws up her nose, the newly replaced ring glinting in her nostril. “Boy parts. Yuck. I've seen enough of you to last a lifetime.”

Phil laughs, loudly, and as it tails off he realises just how much tension he's been holding in his body. How scared he'd been that his menu wouldn't go well. But it had, hadn't it? 

He just doesn't know what that means now.

“I am shattered,” Phil says. “I need to like… sleep. Or scream. Possibly both. Either way, tonight was a lot.”

Kayleigh nods, piercing back in place so that she look more like herself. “You need me to stay with you?”

“No thanks. You going to call your girl?” 

Kayleigh grins and her cheeks tint slightly pink. She flings a tea towel at him as he laughs. 

“You should,” Phil says. 

“She should be getting off work in an hour.”

“Well, there you go.”

Kayleigh leaves to go get changed and Phil shrugs out of his own whites. He's only got a t-shirt on underneath because of how hot it gets in the kitchen. It looks weird, his bright red shirt matched with the black and white check trousers, but it's usually how he ends up looking after work. A little mismatched.

That's it though, isn't it? He's never quite fit in whatever mould he was trying to. He's attached to that menu, it's a reflection of himself. But this is a business, and he knows he isn't supposed to drag those kind of emotions in to it.

One night was good, but that doesn't prove anything. It doesn't mean he can make it a permanent change. 

“I was thinking,” Kayleigh says, coming out of the staff toilet wearing her green velvet skater dress. She's got doc martens on her feel but her legs are bare, the wide compass tattoo on her upper thigh clearly visible. To remind her not to drift too far off course. 

“Hm?”

“If we could get that bloody critic to come back,” She says, shoving her whites into the messenger bag she has slung over her shoulder. “They could taste your menu, rather than Richard's nonsense, and that might help… you know, with the money and stuff. A good review would bring customers, surely?”

“I…”

“Your menu deserves to be eaten,” Kayleigh insists. 

“Right.”

The expectation sits heavy and sour in his throat. He's scared, because if the critic comes back and still hates it, if it's just _him_ that isn't good enough, he isn't sure what he'd do then.

“Think about it,” Kayleigh says, her coat pulled over her dress. 

Phil nods, still distracted with the weighty fear of it all. He's doing a good enough job of hiding it, because Kayleigh doesn't call him out on his silence. 

“You going to call your boy?” she asks, a sly grin aimed at him. 

“I don't even know if he'll be up at this time.”

“Try anyway,” Kayleigh says. “You had a good night, Phil. You deserve to celebrate somehow.”

Kayleigh leaves after a short goodbye. Out into the dark night, to Lara and to everything that might hold. Jack leaves too, and Dodie and Ellie, and then Phil is alone. The harsh lights of the kitchen making his own hands look pale and out of place. 

The black book is on the corner of the counter. He hadn't even noticed he'd left it there, like finally cooking his menu had broken the spell on how sacred it had felt. He tucks it back in his pocket where it belongs, shoving it back away and out of sight so he doesn't have to think about how freeing it had felt to have it out in the open.

He contemplates the evening as he closes down the kitchen, digging his phone out of his pocket just as he turns the light off and punches in the alarm code. The shutters are down on the front and he leaves through the kitchen side door, making sure to lock up behind him. 

“Hello?” Dan's voice answers in Phil's ear. 

Kayleigh is right. Regardless of what it all means Phil had enjoyed tonight, and he can think of nothing better to finish off the evening than hearing Dan's voice, imagining the warmth of his eyes and the soft touch of his mouth while he does. 

“Did I wake you?”

“No,” Dan says. “I was working. What's up?”

Phil smiles, breath misting in the cold of the night air as he walks in the direction of the tube to go home. 

“Nothing. I just got off work, I had a good shift. I just…” he suddenly feels silly, but he says it anyway, because if this is going to work out the way he wants it to Dan is going to have to get used to silly. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“And you couldn't wait until dinner tomorrow?”

“No,” Phil says, honestly.

Dan's laugh is warm and fond, buzzing along the phone line and hitting Phil straight in the chest. 

“I'm glad,” Dan says. 

“Well we have about 10 minutes until I'm at the underground and I lose signal.”

“Okay, Phil. I can talk for 10 minutes.”

Phil talks to him the whole way there. They don't talk about anything specific, and Phil doesn't go into detail about work or any of it. He just listen to Dan ramble about an album that came out today and a TV show he's watching. He listens all the way to the tube stop and even then doesn't want to hang up. 

“I'm going to lose you,” he says, at the top of the steps. 

“That's fine,” Dan answers. 

They don't hang up until Phil's signal gives out somewhere between the ticket barrier and the escalator. 

All in all, it's a good night.

* * *

Phil opens the door and Dan’s face instantly cracks into a smile that takes his breath away. 

“Seriously?” Dan says.

“Um, huh?” 

“Your jumper,” Dan says. 

Phil looks down at his navy jumper and the UFO beaming up christmas presents it depicts. He shrugs. “Coolest christmas jumper ever,” he says, “you won’t convince me otherwise.” 

Dan chuckles and walks inside as Phil steps out of the way to let him in. 

“Wasn’t going to try to,” Dan says.

He’s wearing all black again, of course. He looks good, Phil doesn’t know if it’s by concerted effort or because he’s just naturally gorgeous, but it makes Phil a little stupid just looking at him. 

“Your jumper is adorable,” Dan continues, slipping out of his black coat. He has a bottle of wine in his hands and he transfers it from one to the other as his arms slip out of the sleeves.

Phil takes it from him, hiding the blush he knows he’s porting by turning away from him. 

“Just… come in,” Phil says, and then. “Um, actually I don’t have a coat rack. I’ll just put this…” 

He looks around before draping the coat over the back of the sofa. He feels awkward, and the echo of Kayleigh’s parting taunts as she’d gone out of the door to run the shift at work on his night off hadn’t helped. 

“It is only the beginning of December though,” Dan says.

“Christmas jumpers are fair game from December first,” Phil informs him. 

“Is that right?” 

“Yes.” Phil nods, moving around Dan to indicate the way to the kitchen where he has dinner already cooking. “Sorry, that’s just the way it is. A long Lester family tradition I will take with me to the grave. You won’t change me.”

Dan doesn’t move the way Phil expects him to and so they catch up to each other at the kitchen door, almost colliding. Dan’s body is warm and solid, and Phil can smell the faint minty scent of his breath mixing with the spicy heat of his cologne. 

“Is that so?” Dan says, his voice a soft huff of air on Phil’s cheek. 

“Hmm.” 

“I don’t want to change you,” Dan says, “I like what I’ve seen so far. Christmas jumper included.” 

Phil feels his stomach swoop as Dan dips his head down to plant a sweet, lingering kiss on his lips. Dan’s mouth is warm and plush and there is just a hint of tongue swiping along Phil’s bottom lip as Dan pulls away. It’s perfect. 

“Mmm,” Dan hums. 

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, head a little fuzzy. 

Dan laughs, just for a second. “Dinner smells amazing,” he says.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks. It isn’t anything fancy I’m afraid. Just pasta, a little salad and some garlic bread.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dan says. 

Phil shrugs, moving over to check on the pan of sauce he has on a low simmer. “Make yourself at home.”

Dan does, which is nice. He sits right down in one of the chairs, placing the bottle of wine down next to to the candle Phil has placed in the middle of the table. Maybe it’s a bit extra, Kayleigh had definitely laughed at him when she’d seen it, so he probably won’t light it, but he feels like making an effort with Dan. He hasn’t felt like making that kind of effort in a while. 

“You save the fancy stuff for work?” Dan asks.

“I’m starting to,” Phil says.

“Oh really? You’re doing something different?” Dan picks up the bottle. “Drink?” 

“Thanks,” Phil says. “Bottle opener is in the drawer.” 

Dan gets up and opens the drawer Phil has indicated. He moves past Phil in the small space with a hand dropped casually on to his hip. It’s like they’ve been doing this for years, making space for each other, moving around in coordinated and complementary movements. 

“I’m looking at the menu at work, I might make a new one. I did, a bit. Last night.”

Dan opens the wine and pours it into the glasses Phil has set on the table. He holds the bottle a little further away from the rim than Phil would have done, red wine forming tiny bubbles from the larger drop.

“What are you doing?” Phil asks.

Dan looks down at the glass and then over to Phil. “Oh. I guess you’re usually supposed to let red wine breathe. I could, if you prefer? But I can never really be bothered with all that so I just put some air in it like this.” 

Phil makes an impressed sound he doesn’t really intend to and stops stirring the sauce to turn around and take the glass Dan passes to him. 

“What should we toast to?” Phil asks. 

“Your new menu,” Dan says. He bites down on his bottom lip and for a split second Phil thinks he can see something undefinable pass across his face before he continues. “I hope I get to taste it some day.” 

“You will,” Phil says. 

They touch the rims of their glasses together so that there is a soft tinkling sound and then Phil takes a long, steadying sip. 

“I don’t know if the pouring thing works,” Phil says, “In fact, I don’t know much about wine at all. But this tastes nice.” 

Dan grins, the dimple in his cheek dipping in for a split second. Phil is once again a bit breathless at how attractive he is. He wants to lean in to him and forget about the meal entirely, he wants to slip his hands underneath the black jumper Dan is wearing to find out if the rest of his skin is as warm as his mouth. 

Then he remembers Kayleigh, who is taking it slow with Lara even though she's usually in a rush. Good things are worth waiting for, should be savoured. Dan is a good thing.

“Dinner will be about five minutes,” Phil says. “I hope you're hungry.”

“Mmm, I am.”

Dan takes another wip of wine and Phil could swear that he raises an eyebrow over the rim. Like that little hum wasn't actually about the food, like he's hungry for something else.

It's their second date. Phil shouldn't be thinking about all of that but it seems like Dan is thinking about it too. There is a crackle of tension in the air between them, heady and delicious. 

Phil gets it together just enough to serve dinner. He avoids plating stuff up like he would at the restaurant, because that's not what this is. This is about Dan, about spending time with him, not about fancy presentation techniques. 

“Looks good,” Dan says. 

Phil grins, and sits opposite him at the small table. “I'd reserve judgement until you've actually tasted it,” he says, “I told you, it's nothing fancy.” 

“I'm not here to judge your cooking, Phil.” 

“No?” 

“Nuh uh,” Dan says around a forkful of food. 

Phil wants to say something about how that's probably a good thing given his recent performance, but he doesn't want to bring the mood down. 

“So did you always know you wanted to cook?” Dan says after a few minutes of them eating in silence. 

“Yeah,” Phil says. “I guess so. I mean I suppose it's because of my mum, she always cooks big dinners for us and it's… it's how my family comes together. How lots of people's families come together, I guess. My dad had his own business so he worked long hours but we always sat down at the end of the day to eat together.” 

“That sounds nice.”

“It was,” Phil agrees. “I guess I always liked the idea of cooking so that I could do that for other people. Bring them together I mean. I don't know if I'm really all that good at it but... well… it's all I know how to do.”

“Oh,” Dan says, surprised. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. Not really. I just… you talk about food like it's personal “

“Isn't it?”

Dan reaches for his wine glass, his large hand wrapped around the delicate stem of it. He's lovely, even doing something simple like that, Phil can't help but notice. 

“Hmm. I can see that. I just mean- and don't take this the wrong way- but the food at The Golden Saucer isn't…” he shifts, put the glass down and picks his fork back up. “Well it isn't like this.”

Phil wonders when Dan had been to the Saucer, when the last time he went was. He thinks it was probably when Richard was still in the kitchen, making the menu the way it should be made.

“No,” Phil says. “I guess I'm not… that kind of stuff isn't my style.”

“But you said you're changing it?” 

“Maybe,” Phil says. “I don't know.”

“Why?” 

“Well… you remember I was telling you about that critic?” 

Dan nods, looking intently at his food. 

“It was kind of a big deal. The chef before me was really good at all of that stuff. He's what got the Saucer on the map.” Phil shrugs. “Changing it might just make things worse.”

Dan is biting his lip, white teeth making delicate imprints on the soft pink. “Maybe the problem is you're trying to do something that isn't you.” 

“Maybe.” Or maybe he just isn't good enough, Phil adds silently. Kayleigh’s unamused expression flits into his mind unbidden. “I just wish there was a way to… Like, ask them to come back.”

“Who?” Dan asks, “The old chef?” 

“The critic.”

“Oh.”

Phil hates that they're talking about work and not about something fun. He doesn't want to spend his time with Dan thinking about all of that, he just wants to enjoy it. He thinks about what might happen after this dinner, about what _could_ happen if he could just stop sounding so boring and miserable.

He thinks about the couch in the other room, how Dan is tall but would fit wonderfully in his lap on its cushions. 

“Never mind,” Phil says, waving a dismissive hand.

“No,” Dan insists. “You could. I bet. You could get him to come back.”

Phil clears his throat and nods.

“I'm much more concerned with the fact that _you_ are here _now_ ,” he says, hoping his face looks suitably alluring. 

“Yeah?” Dan says. 

“Mmm.”

Dan holds eye contact for what feels like a drawn out second. Phil licks his lip and knows for sure that Dan can feel the rising tension, the fizz of heat between them. 

“And what was your plan for the rest of the evening?” 

Phil smiles. He can feel how slow it slides onto his mouth, he must look crazy, or hungry, or-- something. 

“I don't know,” Phil says. “I guess you'll have to wait and see after dinner.” 

“Funny,” Dan says, his fork hitting the side of his half-finished meal with a clang. “All of a sudden I couldn't eat another bite.”

“Thank God,” Phil says, his voice breathy and sounding way too eager. “Me either.”

Dan looks eager too, rising to his feet with Phil following after not even a second later. 

Dan's mouth is warm and it tastes of the sauce and red wine when they kiss. Phil slides his arms around Dan's waist and pulls him closer. He's solid and his jumper is soft and Phil wants more, more, more. 

When they part for air, Phil takes him by the hand and pulls him towards the sofa. Dan goes willingly and when they get there Phil is happy to find that he was right. Dan fits perfectly in his lap. 

They don't talk about work any more. In fact, they don't talk about much at all. Phil gets lost in the touch of Dan's hands and the heat of his skin and they don't get around to heating up the rest of their dinner for a long, long time.

* * *

“Give it up, Kay. I don’t kiss and tell.” 

Kayleigh rolls her eyes, “really? And when did this change take place? In uni I heard about your escapades whether I wanted to or not. Now all of a sudden you’re shy?”

“Not shy,” Phil says, taking a sip of coffee from one of the restaurant’s mugs. “Just less inclined to have you ruin my mood by asking invasive questions.”

Kayleigh picks up the pad of lined paper and swats at him with it. 

“Careful,” Phil says. “We’ve got to finish writing that.” 

“I still say we should type it,” she puts the pad back down on the table. 

They’re sat in the restaurant, at one of the tables in the back not yet set up for the dinner shift. Dodie and Ellie are somewhere polishing the silverware and they have a bit of a break before they need to get started. 

“Don’t you think this is more personal?” 

“Old-fashioned, you mean?” 

“Classic.”

Kayleigh puts the pen between her teeth and scowls. She’s taken all of her piercings out for prep, but her hair is free, her skull cap removed for the moment, and she still manages to pull off that hardened stare without the need for adornments. 

“Just… shut up and write the damn letter.” 

“Is this what people do?” she says, looking down at the few scant words they have written. “Just ask critics to come back if they get a bad review?”

“I don’t know what other people do,” Phil says. “But we have to try, Kay. We ask for another shot, while Bev is away. We arrange a night to do it, we give it everything we’ve got. Go down swinging, yeah?” 

Kayleigh smiles, “It’s the only way to go.” 

“What about you?” Phil says. 

“What about me?” Kayleigh says. 

“You never told me how it went with Lara the other night.”

Kayleigh ducks her head over the notepad and taps the pen on it in a jolted rhythm. 

“We’re changing things, right?” Phil says. 

“Yeah Phil, we’re changing things.”

* * *

With a date for the evening set in a couple of weeks, Phil works hard to refine his menu. They repeat it, night after night, taking note of which dishes sell well, which ones don’t. They don’t know if the critic will show up, or what it means if they do, they just know they have to try. They have to. 

In between it, he makes time to see Dan. 

Each time it’s like the weight of everything is lifted. He feels a surge of pride at finally cooking the things he likes, coupled with his ever-growing feelings for this man he clicks with in a way he never expected. 

It’s easy, with Dan. Easy in the kitchen. Easy to do things you really like, things that make your heart beat just that little bit faster with the exhilaration of it all. 

“It just… it means so much to me,” Phil says, over coffee. 

They’re sat next to the window of Starbucks on one of the low couches. They’re both so tall they have to almost fold themselves in half to get down into them, but it’s nice. Dan’s shoulder is pressed against his, and he looks lovely. His shirt isn’t quite black today, it’s a textured, heathered charcoal that sits in soft folds over his abdomen. Phil wants to wriggle his fingers underneath it but he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for lunchtime in a public space. 

They’ve found that this is what works. Lunch, or coffee, while Dan is taking a break from his writing and Phil doesn’t have to be at the Saucer for the dinner shift yet. It’s nice, cosy, becoming wonderfully familiar as the days go on. 

They spend much more time together than Phil had originally intended. More than he thinks is probably appropriate if he doesn’t want to come off as clingy or desperate, but he can’t stand to see Dan go and whenever he does he can’t stop himself asking to see him again right away. 

Dan goes easily, readily agreeing to just as about as much time as Phil will spare him. 

The conversation is always easy, too. 

“I know,” Dan says. “I know it’s important to you.” 

“Sorry, God, I must go on about it all the time.” 

Dan shakes his head, placing his mug back on the saucer it came with. “I always want to hear about what’s important to you.” 

Sometimes Dan says things like that, with a solid earnest expression on his face that makes Phil’s insides feel warm and squirmy. 

“I just… I don’t know if it will even work. I’m doing all of this behind Bev’s back. The menu is solid. I think. I don’t really know but it feels…”

Dan’s eyes don’t leave him. He doesn’t look bored or like he’s thinking about something else. He looks focussed, all of his attention given only to Phil. 

“It feels right,” Phil finishes.

Dan continues to look at him for a moment. His tongue wets his bottom lip, his shoulders square, and he sits up a little straighter. 

“It’s going to work out,” he says. “I know it.”

Phil isn’t so sure, he clings to the idea because he has little else to cling on to, and because Kayleigh keeps shooting him meaningful glances across the kitchen. 

“Making a change,” she’ll say. 

“Making a change,” he repeats. 

Whether it’s positive thinking, something set in motion by the universe, or by sheer force of will alone, something works. 

Phil slides through the door for his shift one cold evening, having just left Dan on their Starbucks couch, to find Kayleigh, Jack, Dodie and Ellie huddled around, talking frantically. 

“What’s going on?” Phil asks. 

Kayleigh spins, hands outstretched, an envelope waving erratically in a clenched fist. 

“They fucking wrote back,” she says. “They’re coming.” 

“Shit.” 

Phil takes the envelope, reads the letter inside. It’s typed, he notes, not handwritten, but she’s right, they’re coming back. 

“Time to get to work, then,” Phil says. 

Kayleigh claps her hands and follows his lead. They get to work.

* * *

Phil is rushing. He has a tea towel over one shoulder, an empty pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. He yells over at Jack to turn the heat down on something that may or may not be ready to boil over, and he holds out the pot to Kayleigh for her to dump the stuff from her prep station into. 

They’re a well oiled machine, one hand finishing one thing while already moving onto the next with the other. 

He can’t believe how well it’s going. It has to go perfect. 

He’s rushing, and he’s thinking about how tonight's the night. The night the critic might be coming back and so he doesn’t spot Bev right away, she’s been stood by the slowly swinging door of the kitchen for a few minutes before he comes to a stop in front of her. 

“Bev,” he says. “You’re back.” 

He hears the rattle and crash of the kitchen come to a stop behind him. The steady thrum of the ovens is still going, but there are no voice, no shouts of orders, nothing. 

“Phil,” Bev says, a copy of Phil’s menu in her hands. 

It’s not the full leather cover, just the cream coloured paper they slip into it. Usually held down by corner slots, she has obviously ripped it from the first one she saw, a jagged torn edge in her fingers as proof.

“I can explain.” 

While he technically can explain, it isn’t the most helpful thing he could have said, given the circumstances. 

“You had better.” 

Phil looks over his shoulder, Kayleigh and Jack have stopped what they’re doing, watching the scene unfold with wide, fearful eyes.

“Can we go to your office?” Phil says. 

“No.” Bev shakes her head. She has black oval earrings in today, not quite as large as her usual ones but big enough that they catch the light as she moves. “Here will do fine.”

“I know what it looks like,” he says, “but just… We have to do this.” 

“What? Phil, I _asked_ you, specifically, not to change anything. Consistency, that’s all I needed from you. Not… this.” She holds up the menu between them, Phil feels his stomach sink at every word of it. “Change it back.” 

“We’re not changing it back,” Kayleigh says, from behind him. 

“Excuse me?” 

“We’re not changing it. Phil worked hard on that menu, and it’s good Bev. It’s really good.” 

“I don’t care about how good you think it is,” Bev says, her voice going high and nasal, “I care about how you did this all behind my back.”

“Fine,” Phil nods. “Yes, we did it behind your back and I’m sorry. But, Bev, look… The critic is coming back, alright? He’s coming back tonight to try this menu. We can’t change it.” 

“What? How?” 

“We…” he trails off, suddenly struck with how pathetic it all is, writing to a critic to ask for a second chance. Like begging. 

“Phil got him to come back,” Kayleigh says. “Phil’s menu.”

Bev turns her gaze to him, letting the single page drop to her side. “Do you really think this is going to work?” she asks. 

Phil takes a breath, steadies himself. 

“We’ve got to try,” he says. “Otherwise we roll over and give in. We don’t need all that fancy Richard stuff.” 

“My investors would agree,” she says, a manicured nail tapping against her chin. 

“Sorry?” 

“That’s the reason I’m back early,” she says. “My trip was not quite as productive as I’d thought it might be. People don’t want to invest in something… well, there was fear that Richard might come back for the menu. That it was too… unique. There was talk of intellectual property and… well. I won’t bore you with it.” 

Phil waits, anticipation coiled in him so tight he feels like it could snap at any second. 

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s give it a shot.”

* * *

He doesn’t appear until the middle of their shift. Dodie comes through the swinging door, her ponytail swinging behind her with every excited step. 

“He’s here!” 

“Are you sure,” Phil shouts over the sound of steak sizzling, “How do you know?” 

“He’s the only one by himself, you think he’d be a bit more discreet than booking a table for one.” 

“Has he ordered yet?” 

“Not yet, Ellie’s just seated him and taken his drinks order.” 

“Right,” Phil says, heaving a breath deep enough to stretch his lungs to the point of ache. “Let me know when his order comes in. This is it people, show time.”

He doesn’t order the soup, the only item existing from their old arrangement, but Phil supposes that’s because he’s already tried that. 

He orders two starters in fact. Sending one back half finished.

“Does he look happy?” Phil asks when Ellie pops back in with the empty dishes. 

“Not exactly.”

“What?” 

“Order up!” Jack shouts behind her, and she has to head back out into the rush of the shift. 

He gets multiple side dishes with his main. It’s the lamb Phil remembers his mum making on a Sunday, made with his own marinade of course, a twist on his old favourite. Just like the rest of the menu. 

“He keeps making all these faces,” Dodie says. 

“Oh god,” Phil says, tugging at his hair. “Is he? What do we do? Should I go and talk to him? Is that a thing?”

Dodie shrugs at him, her white blouse wrinkling around her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she says, honestly. 

“Is he having dessert?” 

Ellie has come back to the serving station and looks at Phil from underneath the warming lamp. 

“He said no dessert,” she says. 

Phil is half way out of the door before he thinks about it. It’s one thing to sit there all night making faces, to send back dishes half finished like he can’t even be bothered to spend the time eating it, but to simply refuse to see the evening through? 

It burns white-hot in Phil’s vision, sending him through the door and into the restaurant, amid the bustle of people. Looking over their heads to find the one person sat alone. 

“Don’t,” Kayleigh says, calling after him and following behind him. 

“He’s probably just full,” Dodie says.

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees, “Plus he had like, every single condiment with his main course so perhaps he--” 

“He did what?” 

Phil’s stomach sinks, even before his eyes lock on a lone diner. Even before he knows he _knows_. Because of course. 

There, on the far side of the dining room, at a table by himself, is Dan. 

“What?” Ellie says, next to his elbow. 

“Phil?” Kayleigh places a hand on his shoulder, the pleading, empathetic tone of her voice letting him know that he must be giving everything away with his face. 

He dreads to think what his face is doing, especially as Dan looks up at the moment and catches his eye. 

Phil’s feet take him across the room too quickly for anyone to keep up with him. Eyes of customers follow him, the sight of his chef’s white sticking out amid the soft lighting and dressed up surroundings. 

“Phil,” Dan says, when he reaches his table. 

“What… Dan? I don’t--” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand.” 

Dan stands up from the table, “Phil--”

“No,” Phil shakes his head. “It can’t be you, you’re… we’re…”

“I can explain.” 

Phil feels an acidic taste of rageful bile rise in his throat. He can’t do this. His chest is heaving with the effort of maintaining his composure in the busy dining room. 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the door to the stairs open, and Bev appear around the door frame. 

“I don’t need you to explain,” he says. “I don’t need you to do anything at all. Just get out.” 

“Phil, please.” 

Phil purses his lips and shifts his eyes away from the sad curve of Dan’s mouth. He can’t look at him anymore, can’t listen to him try to justify whatever the hell this is. 

“Phil,” Kayleigh says from behind him, looking over at Dan. “Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” Phil says, turning around. “I’m fine. I was just… This is just. It was a mistake.”

Kayleigh keeps her eyes on him as he turns back to Dan. Dan is hovering near the table, one foot stepped forward as if trying to reach Phil in some way. 

“Leave,” Phil says. “Don’t worry about paying for dinner, that’s on me. I don’t want your money.” 

“Listen, Phil, the food tonight was amazing. It was so good I ordered way too much and couldn’t even finish everything. You deserve a good review--” 

“Are you kidding?” 

Phil is aware of the eyes on him. He’s aware that the kitchen is at a standstill while Kayleigh tugs on his arm from behind. Bev watches on, stern and mouthing at him to get back to work. 

“Don’t write a review,” Phil says. “ It’s all just a lie. Don’t write a review. Don’t come back here, don’t keep talking, in fact don’t talk to me at all. Ever again.” 

Dan looks like he wants to say more, but Kayleigh is shooting him a hard look over Phil’s shoulder and so he just steps away from the table. Phil watches him walk towards the door, collect his coat from Ellie whose expression is unmistakably that of disgust. 

Phil isn’t sure she really understands what just happened, but she knows Phil is upset and that’s enough to trigger her loyalty. 

“Come on,” Kayleigh says, tugging on him again, and Phil goes with her back to the kitchen. Back to work, to the heat and the familiar routine of order after order. 

He tries not to think about Dan, about the betrayal and the lies. He tries not to think about what it means that they won’t get a good review now, that it was all for nothing. 

He tries not to think at all, but it doesn’t really work.

* * *

Kayleigh doesn’t let him wallow. It’s one of her more annoying qualities, she thinks that just because she doesn’t experience human emotions in the way that most people do, that everyone else should be the same. 

“You need to snap out of this,” she says two days after. “The restaurant is doing well, despite everything Phil, we still got what we wanted.” 

It’s bittersweet. Tainted with the memory of seeing Dan at that table. It doesn’t matter how well the restaurant is doing, how good the word of mouth has been, how sales have increased. 

It doesn’t matter that Bev’s investor called her back after the word reached all the way to him, and is offering the cash injection they need to stay afloat. 

None of that matters, because he can’t get the image of Dan’s face out of his mind. Here, in this restaurant, brazen and bold faced in his lie.

Why turn up? Why come here at all. That’s the bit that doesn’t make any sense to him.

“I can’t snap out of it,” Phil says. “I just need to feel like this for a bit.” 

He doesn’t know whether he gets through to her, or if she’s just given up. Either way, shes gives him a little more time before she’s asking him again. 

By the fourth day he’s used to the numb feeling he drags around with him. Bev praises his work and tells him what a good job he’s doing and Phil finds it ironic that he feels even less passionate about any of it these days, and he’s getting the best reviews of his life. 

The days go by and the pain in his chest doesn’t get any easier. Kayleigh stops telling him to get over it, but she also stops asking him how he is altogether. 

There’s only so long she can look at his sad eyes and his pathetic expression before she gives up. 

It’ll get better, he tells himself. It has to. He just needs this time, to feel this way for a bit.

* * *

Kayleigh and Jack are in the kitchen when he arrives for his shift an entire week after it happened. He doesn’t sweep in like he usually does, doesn’t trip over his own feet or steal bites of food on his way in, he hasn’t done any of that in a while. Instead, he just shuffles through the door, feeling tired and drained. 

“What?” he says, their faces wide-eyed like a deer in headlights.

“Um…” Jack says. 

“Have you read the paper?” Kayleigh asks. 

“No? Why would I--” He stops himself, because there is a reason he might read the paper today. “He didn’t… Shit, did he write the review?” 

“Have you spoken to him?” Kayleigh asks. 

“No. No he tried to call a bunch of times but I-- What’s going on?” 

“Phil, mate. I think you need to sit down.” Jack says. 

“Kayleigh? What is it?” 

Phil walks over to them, ditching the backpack where he keeps his chef whites. Jack has the paper in his hands, already folded open to the food & drink section. 

“Phil…” 

“I told him not to write it,” Phil says, his voice a little wild, head spinning with anger. “I asked him… it’s the only thing I-- for fucks sake.” 

“It’s not what you think,” Jack says. 

Phil reaches out his hand and Kayleigh pauses, shooting Jack a look before Phil steps around him, blocking their eye line. 

“If you guys don’t give it to me I swear I’ll just walk out of here and buy my own copy,” he says. 

“Fine,” Kayleigh says. “Just… be prepared, okay?”

Phil takes it from her and looks down at the page. The first thing he notices is a picture of Dan where there isn’t usually one. It’s a professional headshot, he’s even wearing a collared shirt, although the top buttons are undone, he isn’t wearing a tie and it is, of course, black. Below it, in a small italic type font, is _Daniel Howell_.

“What is this?” Phil says, looking up at Kayleigh. 

She’s chewing on her bottom lip, tapping her fingers against the bottom hem of her chef whites. 

“Just read it,” she says. “Please.” 

Phil takes a breath, and reads.

**Dear Chef…**

_Today’s column is a little different. I’m not going to talk about new restaurant openings, or the latest goings on in the culinary world. In fact, today I’m not going to talk about food at all. At least, not much._

_Although my editor has advised against it (Happy Dean? I put it in writing) I’m using this column to come clean. To reveal my name and my face and everything else because I’m tired of hiding. If that means an end to my career then so be it, I’ll find something else to do. More importantly, I’m using what very well may end up being my final column to offer an open apology to someone I hurt. As a last ditch attempt at laying everything out on the line and letting them know how sorry I am about the way things went._

_They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and if that’s true, this particular chef had my heart right from the beginning. Even when I didn’t know it._

_In writing this, I’m doing something he told me not to. He asked me not to write a review of his restaurant because it wouldn’t be fair. While I think that’s true, I can’t really stop myself from reviewing something, because that’s what I do, it’s who I am. So if I may, I’ll offer you this._

_You are an incredible chef, who cooks with his heart rather than his hands, and I am just a poor sap without any of my own talent doling out opinions on other people’s creations._

_If I were to rate our conduct in the time we had together, it would be me that came out with one-star, not you. I’d say I don’t deserve any stars at all except I have had the good sense to at least fall in love with you. So I deserve one star for good taste. You, on the other hand, who have the good sense to be mad at me about what I did, deserve all five. And more besides._

_I did what I did because by the time I knew who you were I didn’t know how to tell you who I was. I did it because I was already so gone on you I didn’t know how to tell you I was the very person that had made your life so difficult._

_If I could go back and change it, I would. Not because I think it would have ended differently, because you probably would have ended it right then and there and I would have deserved it. Just like I deserve it now. But I would change it to save you the pain I caused._

_Before I run out of column inches, I’ll say this: I’m sorry. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, or any hope at all that you’ll possibly accept it and want to give us another go. But if you do, I’ll be back where it started next Sunday, same time. With all the dips._

_I hope to see you there._

Phil feels something large and painful rise in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut just as they start to sting and lets the paper fall back down onto the counter. 

He’s embarrassed by the sob that erupts from his chest and he lays his hands over his face to hide his gaze from Kayleigh and the others. 

“Phil…” Kayleigh says. 

He hears the rustle of paper and knows she’s picked it up. He can’t open his eyes, can’t look at it again for fear of losing it all together. 

It hurts, like something raw and exposed, his pain put out there for the world to see. 

“Phil.” Kayleigh says. 

“No.” Phil wrenches his hands from his face and meets her gaze, steely-eyed and focussed. Determined that he isn’t going to give in. “Leave it, Kay.” 

“I’m gunna…” Jack says, behind them, pointing a thumb over his shoulder to signal his departure. “Look, for what it’s worth man, I think the guy is really sorry.” 

Phil doesn’t even turn around to watch him leave, just listens to the familiar sound of the kitchen door swinging shut behind him. 

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says, cutting Kayleigh off before she can say anything. 

“So, what? You’re not going to go?”

“No,” Phil says. “Of course I’m not going to go.”

“The guy wrote you a love letter and published it in a national newspaper, are you an idiot?”

“He lied to me.”

“People lie,” Kayleigh says, throwing her hands up in the air, the paper flapping noisily. “You lie to yourself about how much you want things all the time. Hell, I told Lara I didn't want a relationship which was just bullshit because I was scared of how much I did want it. So what if Dan said your heart wasn't in Richard's menu? It wasn't. He was just doing his job.”

“But--”

“No. He's right Phil. You were playing it safe, we both were. Nothing changes unless you change it, remember? Fuck, maybe it was meeting Dan that made you feel like you could take a chance in the first place. Or maybe it wasn't. Either way…” She shakes the paper at him. “Don't let this be yet another thing you let go because you're too scared to take a chance.”

Phil feels it when it breaks, the dam in his chest bursting with something and he lets out a choked out sob and tears spring from his eyes. 

“I… Oh god. Kay.” 

“I know,” she says, moving in close and wrapping her arms around him where they fit. She’s still shorter than him, and it feels a little odd to be held by her, small as she is, but it’s nice too. 

“I’m scared.”

“I know,” she nods. “But Phil… You’ve got take a chance once in a while.”

“How do I know he won’t lie to me again?” 

He takes a breath and moves away, his face it hot and damp and he rubs at his cheeks as she rubs soothingly at his shoulder. 

“You don’t,” She shrugs. “I’m not saying you need to believe in him. You don’t have to, no one does when they do these things, right? You’re right to be scared, who isn’t? But you do need to believe in yourself, Phil. And if that means taking the leap and trying it, then that’s what you have to do.”

“Tomorrow?” he says. “It’s Sunday tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow,” she repeats, and it’s settled.

* * *

The Market is less crowded than last time, but still full of colour and noise. It’s a bit colder, and he’s bundled up in a scarf and gloves, restricted in his coat, but it doesn’t stop him making a beeline for the food stalls. 

He walks past the paella stall, barely even registering it, making his way around to where the fajita stall had been, only to find the spot vacated. Just a patch of cracked concrete, grass growing up between the joins, and Phil feels his heart sink. 

It isn’t here. 

He turns, pivoting on his heel and making a quick decision. There is still a small collection of tables and chairs and he cranes his head over the crowd, using his height as an advantage, to see if he can spot the familiar slope of Dan’s shoulders. But he is nowhere to be seen. 

He sits, choosing a table just to the left of the one they had sat at all that time ago. There is a father there now, with what looks like his teenager daughter. They’re both eating in silence, scrolling on their phones, and Phil wants to shake them, tell them to look up and talk. 

He’s scared. Scared that Dan won’t turn up, or that he will. He’s scared that he’ll never get another chance to sit across a table from him and ignore his phone. On the flip side, he’s scared that maybe the person sitting across from him all those times wasn’t worth ignoring his phone for. 

He knows what Kayleigh said, he knows he needs to face up to the truth of how scared he is. He knows Dan lied for what might be a good reason but still, he doesn’t know how all of this is going to turn out until it happens. 

He sits for a while. Until the end of his nose has turned pink with the cold, until his cheeks ache with the frigid wind. He waits until he’s sure Dan isn’t going to show. 

That’s when he knows. 

The sudden realisation that Dan isn’t going to show slams into him at a velocity he wasn’t prepared for, square in his gut. He suddenly can’t stand the idea that Dan isn’t coming, desperately and keenly wants him to be here. 

He stands, filled with the kind of determination that might make him march directly over to Dan’s home, or his work, or maybe just to go from restaurant to restaurant until he finds the one Dan happens to be reviewing, and sit himself down directly across the table. 

As it is, he only gets as far as a few feet away from the line for the paella stall. 

There is Dan, stood in the queue. He’s wearing a long-line black coat that fits him perfectly, it hits him right above the knee in one graceful line all the way up to the delicate strip of skin on the nape of his neck. He’s got his head bent, staring down at his phone, thumb scrolling on the screen. 

Phil feels his breath catch and his heart pick up. He knows. He’s scared, but he knows. 

"Smells good but it isn't worth eating if you ask me." 

He’s taken the few steps it takes to be right at Dan’s elbow. He can see him up close as he turns, that full-body smile lighting him up the way it always does. There is relief too, washed into his brow like a knot unwound and Phil feels it in himself too. 

"No?" 

It’s so good to hear his voice. Phil shakes his head. 

"An expert on these things are you?" Dan asks, the corner of his mouth curled up. This time, Phil is in on the joke.

"Hm," Phil says, remembering how this conversation goes, "I guess you could say that."

"Okay Mr. expert,” Dan breathes, “where do you recommend?"

Phil’s hands reach out to touch him, to pull him close, but he flexes his fingers inside his gloves and makes himself stay still. 

“The fajita place is gone.” It sounds ridiculous, because god knows that a tiny market stall isn’t the only place a chef and a food critic could find to eat, but he feels like he’s been cheated out of something somehow. 

“That’s okay,” Dan says, “I know a really good chef.”

Phil does reach for him then, pulls him out of the queue with a gloved hand fisted in his coat. Dan goes easily, stepping into Phil’s personal space as Phil’s arms encircle him. 

He’s warm, solid, and he fits right there in Phil’s arms like he was made for it. 

“Is that right?” Phil says, his breath misting into the space between them. 

“Hmm.” Dan’s head cocks imperceptibly to the left. Phil knows he’s angling to be kissed. He wants to give in, he really does, but the look on Dan’s face when it doesn’t come is priceless.

“That your professional opinion?” 

Dan’s eyes go wide for half a second and they lock on to Phil’s. Dan brings a hand up to the back of Phil’s neck, the other resting lightly on his bicep. 

“You know it doesn’t have to be,” he says. “That’s not… Phil, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t even know who you were until that night at the sushi place, and I made the decision in a split second of fear not to tell you who I was. I was scared that I’d… I already liked you so much. And then it just got harder and harder to say anything. I came to the Saucer that night to… well, I think I told myself I was there to tell you the truth, but I wasn’t. I thought I’d be able to get in and out without you knowing it was me. I’m being honest here, Phil. I’m trying to be honest. I didn’t expect you to come out of that kitchen. But I swear… if I could go back I’d do it differently. I’d go back, to right here, right to those fajitas, and I’d say ‘I’m Dan and I’m a food critic’. And maybe you’d hate me, I don’t know, but I would. I’d go back and do it differently. I’m so… I’m just really fucking sorry.”

Phil grins. It’s enough, he’s sick of being scared and denying the things he wants. He needs to take a risk, put himself out there, regardless of how it all turns out. 

“Okay,” he says, and kisses him.

* * *

“There are too many cooks in this kitchen,” Phil yells above the sound of the extractor fan. 

“Hey, don’t look at me. I’m the only one here that isn’t a chef…” Dan leans in way too close to where Phil is bent over a pan of sauce and kisses him messily on the cheek. 

Phil swats him out of the way, brandishing a wooden spoon, but unable to stop the smile that appears on his face whenever Dan is around whether he wants it to or not. 

While Phil is distracted Dan takes the spoon from his hand and licks at the sauce dripping from it. His eyes flutter shut and a moan rumbles in his throat not unlike some of those Phil hears muffled by their bed covers. Phil feels his mouth go a little dry and a pulling, hungry sensation in his gut that has nothing to do with the food.

“You guys are disgusting,” Kayleigh says from Phil’s other side. 

The kitchen is far too small for the three of them to all be crammed in around the hob, but Kayleigh refuses to leave, nerves rooting her to the spot while she chews on the corner of her thumbnail. She refuses to be distracted by doing anything remotely like prep.

“I’m not at work right now, you’re not my boss,” she’d said when Phil innocently asked her to chop an onion.

Dan had offered, but Phil didn’t really trust him not to try and cut it into some weird fancy shape that made no sense when it came to actual cooking. Not everything has to be fancy, Phil tells him, it just has to taste good. 

So Dan doesn’t really need to be in the kitchen in the strictest sense, but Phil can’t bear to let him go. 

“Just wait until Lara gets here,” Phil says, taking the spoon back from Dan but deciding against putting it back into the pot. 

Like he’d conjured her, the bell for the door to their building sounds. 

“Oh my god,” Kayleigh runs a hand through her newly dyed red hair. It looks good, but it had taken Phil a little bit of an adjustment to get used to seeing it so bright. Since the middle of their second year in university he’d only known her with pink hair, and most of the time it was the faded misty colour of candy floss. 

Things were changing, had changed, and that was alright. 

“Go,” Phil smiles at her. 

Kayleigh leaves to go answer the door and Phil turns to Dan. 

They regard each other for a moment in silence. It hasn’t been too long since that day at the market, but it feels like they’ve known each other forever. They’d talked, a lot, about Dan lying and how Phil felt about it. 

The Saucer continues to do well, even without the review Phil won’t let Dan write. Or let anyone of the other critics Dan might be able to steer in his direction write. Phil’s menu is growing in popularity every day all on its own.

He finally feels like he is doing what he is supposed to, he can feel it every evening as the kitchen moves around him, scents and sounds so familiar, but now made up of the menu he put in place. A reflection of him, of home, of all the things he holds dear. 

He’s planning to add his own personal twist on fajitas to the menu in the new year, it’s written in his black book, at the bottom of the back page. It’s his Christmas present for Dan. 

Kayleigh comes back in, a tall tattooed girl with short black hair and a lip piercing holding her hand. 

“This is Lara,” she says, and Phil can hear the hesitation in her voice. 

“Nice to meet you,” Dan supplies, over Phil’s shoulder. 

He realises that it’s because he hasn’t said anything. He still has the wooden spoon in his hand so he puts it down on the side and moves over to give Lara a hug. She’s a little startled at first, dropping Kayleigh’s hand and reeling back a little. But she hugs him back, the tension in the room finally breaking. 

Kayleigh swats at him, tells him off for being weird, and they all introduce themselves. Once they’re finished there are definitely too many people in his kitchen, their small two-seater table against the wall is not adequate seating for the four of them. 

They relocate to the living room, clamouring over each other as Phil spoons food on to plates and shouts at Kayleigh for picking up the salt. 

“It is adequately seasoned,” Phil shouts after her.

“I’m not taking any chances,” she calls back.

Kayleigh and Lara sit on the two-seater sofa, Dan snatches the armchair and Phil is left standing, coming in to the room last. He rolls his eyes, barging his way in and finding a spot to sit on the carpet, his back to Dan’s shins, between his slightly spread feet. Dan rubs a socked toe against his hip and Phil leans into the touch for a second, just to feel it. 

Dinner begins with the clink of forks against plates and Lara makes a happy, satisfied sound not unlike the one Dan had made earlier. 

“Sorry,” she says, as Phil’s head snaps up to look at her and Kayleigh’s cheeks go a little pink. “It’s just… this is incredible.” 

“Thank you,” Phil says.

“Don’t encourage him,” Kayleigh says. “First the restaurant gets an award and now you. Next he’ll even be getting a good review from Dan.” 

Dan reaches around behind his back and throws a scatter cushion at her. It misses, but not by much. 

“Do you not usually enjoy his food?” Lara asks. 

Dan laughs, and without turning around Phil knows he’s got that full-body smile on his face. He kids himself he can feel it where Dan’s legs are bracketing his back, he can’t, but he likes to think he can. 

“These clowns are just joking because… well, because that’s my job. I’m a food critic.” 

“Yikes,” Lara says, “that must be rough. A hard man to please, are you?” 

Phil tips his head back so that his crown is resting against the join of Dan’s knee and thigh. Dan drops a hand to his hair and strokes his fingers lightly through it. 

“He knows the best places to order in from, though,” Phil says. Dan rolls his eyes at him.

“Come on,” Kayleigh says, laughing with the joy of ribbing them simply because she can. “Give us the review.” 

Phil doesn’t take his eyes off Dan’s. “Yeah,” he says, words quiet and meant only for him. “Give us the review.” 

Dan’s hand pauses in his hair, shifting down over his forehead. Blunt fingertips sweep at his cheekbone and Dan sets his plate aside, leans over to press a delicate kiss on his lips. He tastes like sauce and a smile. 

“A full five stars.”


End file.
